PDF Version. The chain of events that would bring Canadian soldiers into the desolate and dangerous terrain of Afghanistan began on September 11, On that day, four airliners were hijacked in the skies over the eastern United States; two were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center towers and one into the Pentagon, resulting in the death of nearly 3, people. These horrific attacks shocked and galvanized the United States and much of the world. Canada would soon play a role in the ensuing international efforts to battle terrorism and help bring democracy to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a rugged country in Southwest Asia, located between Pakistan and Iran. This ancient, mountainous land is about the size of Saskatchewan and has a population of approximately 30 million people. The various ethnic groups and factions that have made the country home over the centuries have given Afghanistan a rich heritage and diversity, but have also helped make peace and stability difficult to achieve.
The civil war that broke out after the former Soviet Union withdrew from its military occupation of Afghanistan in the s would see the Taliban regime gain control of the country. The difficulty of fighting in Afghanistan can admittedly be exaggerated. It is very large, mountainous and rugged, but in by far the greater part of the country, there is no forest cover whatsoever.
This obviously gives tremendous advantages to armed forces with air dominance. In the first years of the Soviet intervention, this allowed the Soviet forces to make great progress against the Mujahedin, at an acceptable cost in Soviet lives - though at a horrendous cost to Afghan civilians in Mujahedin-controlled areas, who were exposed to merciless and indiscriminate bombardment.
The tide of war only turned against the Soviets when US Stinger and British blowpipe hand-held anti-aircraft missiles began to reach the Mujahedin in large numbers in the mids. Today, although the Taliban do still possess some of these, it would seem from the lack of damage to the allied airforces that they are probably no longer very effective. And even the Stingers did not win the battle decisively for the Mujahedin.
In the end Gorbachev withdrew as much for political as military reasons. Above all, Soviet-backed Communist airpower contributed a great deal to preserving the Communist regime for almost three years after the Soviet ground forces withdrew. During the failed Mujahedin assault on Jalalabad in March , I felt naked as a worm in the face of repeated air attacks, which inflicted considerable casualties among the Mujahedin and played a crucial role in defeating their attack.
However, as in that battle, airpower can only play an overwhelming role if enemy troops are forced to concentrate on the ground to fight other ground troops. It will of much less utility when or if the present war turns into a man-hunting operation to track down Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda or Taliban leaders, who will probably move at night and be helped by some at least of the local population.
Of course, airpower will still have a very important reconaissance and support role, which will probably be helped by Afghan laxness about camouflage and security—these are after all people who frequently siphon petrol from one tank to another with a lighted cigarette stuck in the corner of their mouths.
In the much shorter term, US and British airpower is already playing a critical role in helping the Northern Alliance ground forces in their assault on Mazar-e-Sharif, and it will do the same when they move on Herat and other centers in Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara territory. The problem is that for ethno-political reasons, the US is being very cautious about using ground-attack aircraft to help an Alliance assault against Kabul—let alone Kandahar, Jalalabad and other ethnically Pashtun cities in Taliban-controlled territory.
Too much "been there done it" gets in the way. Irwinthis is where an inherent cultural expertise base exists--it is just no one seems to know what to do with them. These individuals come straight out of their own cultural environments, have extensive intrepeter skill sets and have worked as lingusitsuse them do not park them in the desert at Irwin.
Problem is as with all standalone USAR unitswill they get the continued support and access to databases that they need to continue to learn as culture never stands still--all about future funding.
It can workthe question is does big Army really want it to work? Money wise it is just shifting the pie around and stating everything in doctrine and in the FMs. Not all that difficult actually. From what I understand HTS was established because three Army communities were not leaning in hard enough to apply a cultural lens and basic research methods to their existing work. This creative approach is not likely to stand much longer Once the HTS money and lessons are moved to real units, the contractors can be redirected to the next big project but what should be done with the existing HTS uniform personnel mainly RC?
I think the former is wiser for many reasons. Who makes this call? I'd find your comments about the following helpful as well While there is always room for a specialists like you, it is fairly difficult to build them into the force structure long-term for many reasons. More importantly, we need different specialists at different times based on the mission, phase, etc.
We don't need "generalist" specialists on the books as the model doesn't provide what we need and it costs too much. So the questions is, what should the Army do with the real, high-end specialists like you once the HTS experiment is ended? Thanks for the feedback.
As a SME Ph. D I could question COAs beyond the point of a green suiter.. Much of the training I received at Leavenworth was on computer software and totally useless along the Pakistani border where HUMAN relationships are everything. Granted that we desperately need an archival system to deal with the huge amount of information generated by a good HTT! I replaced Michael B. In most of the "burden" was carried by non-DOD isstitutions.
Concur with Dave. Yes, SF soldiers are historically trained in insurgency, as that is what UW is all about. Hey Anonymous: Let's not start a flame war here. We do not need the we-they argument. It is not one force or another - we need good strategy supported by a holistic campaign plan that is underpinned with understanding the nature of the conflict and the conditions that give rise to it and then the wisdom to know what is doable and what cannot be done and not jump into something with the Type A "can do" attitude that thinks we can solve any problem in the world.
So the 0. COL Jones you must know that no one wants to listen to those green berets especially now that they had their chance with Gen McChrystal - wasn't he a green beret trained in insurgency who served for about a year in SF in ? Why would you propose such a thing? Although you are right above you are also dreaming that anyone would listen to SF guys and what they know about insurgency unless they are in places like Africa, Colombia and the Philippines where the big guys are not playing.
So, three guys walk into a bar. One is an expert on security, one is an expert on development, and one is an expert on governance. Realizing they might need help, they bring along an expert on the people who regularly attend said bar. Ok, so this same group of heros go to some country deemed to be a "failed state"; an "exestential threat"; a "terrorist sanctuary" and an "insurgency threatening to become a civil war.
Which one has the best understanding of what must be done, and how it must be done to have the best chance of producing the desired effects of addressing US National interests in said country? Now, any of these guys can be trained in insurgency, it isn't some mystic art.
But the fact is that When you were armed, traveled by MRAP, could your line of conversation with the local population be defined as tactical questioning, field expedient interrogation, or strat debriefings all in fact which can be been carried out by well trained HUMINT Collection Teams? Or is it really an evalated form of strategic debriefing which could in fact be carried out by well trained strat debriefers?
If a armed HTT member gets killed in an ambush or attack does in fact DOL cover the "damages" along with the Defense Contractor or does DoD carry the burden as it does for all military membersone could interpret that it is DoD's responsibility as they are the one's authorizing the carrying of weapons and DOL could wave off on the claims does it not?
Especially since the Base Act really only forsaw civilians in support roles not armed civilians on the battlefield. If captured do the Taliban treat you as a armed civilian "spy" or a member of DoD also an interesting legal question. We carried weapons and moved on the ground by MRAP and on foot patrols all the time.
We gave the brigade staff plenty of "ah-ha" moments that made an operational difference. I agree with Gregory C. That culture is a "no-brainer" as did our battalion, squadron and brigade commanders. Social Science can make a difference in conflict and especially pre-conflict zones. But, admittedly, it takes a special kind of social scientist to integrate with the military mission and work at the "down and dirty" level. Until HTS and their HTTs are willing to carry arms, move on the ground in armed patrols and are willing to contribute to intelligence driven operations that in fact might be aimed at their target audience I see no future for them.
The items above clash with the core academic beliefs of a number of the HTT personnel and the HTS leadership--which in turn is hard to sell in the recruiting process of new academics. Being new to the COIN doctrine it is always risky providing input to this debate, but it is an area that fascinates me. SWJ is great online learning environment. There are two points to make from my time in Afghanistan: 1 over complicating things; 2 difficulty collecting information. I came at COIN in Afghanistan from thinking about how society has been trying to tackle the socio-economic environment that allows violence, abuse, gangs etc to fester in our home towns.
Police cant just shoot and arrest their way to zero crime. Isnt this then similar to the human terrain in Afghanistan? Surely this is a good thing. The same applies to our criminal justice and social services systems. What seems to get in the way, either HTT in a war zone or in the bad neighbourhoods, is over-complicating the analysis that then leads to setting expectations way too high for the current stage of development for the given population. What people want tends to be the same.
So destilling all the information down to a simple construction that helps with tangible outcomes is key. However, it was obvious they were chomping at the bit to go over the wire without the MRAP and severely restrictive rules of engagement not shooting back - just when and where they allowed to go So perhaps more creative collection methods need to be adopted to ensure a deeper and more accurate picture of the environment can be built. Also gotta add that it's not perfect.
The same dudes studying wicked problems gave us that monstrosity that ended up on the Daily Show :. Depends on how you define the boundaries of the problem. Warfare like politics and many other social endeavors are wicked problems. When I use the term, I am speaking directly to the burgeoning academic field on how to deal with such problems through alternative approaches. It is a very technical field. Take an example like water rights in NorCal.
Fishermen, farmers, and the major population centers of SoCal are all competing for a limited supply of water. Who should get what? How is it divided? How is the problem communicated and what is the process towards negoitiation and bargaining?
How do you deal with the spoilers- those that regardless of the outcome will seek to inflame emotions and grievances towards violent protest or action?
This field attempts to find least bad solutions to intractable problems through redefining the problem, creativity, collaboration, consensus building, or simple giving up on the problem.
Just asking because I have a thing about overused terms. What is a wicked problem in regards to warfare? I am of the mind that it's all wicked. Terms such as this one and others, COIN is the graduate level of warfare is but one more example, do nothing in moving things forward as they tend to generate a lot of unnecessary debate over "words", which of course have meaning.
It sounds like you're asking the right questions. In the few cases in which the Afghan security forces did successfully slow Taliban attacks, as occurred in Lashkar Gah in May of this year, it was because they enjoyed substantial U.
As I predicted in my earlier analysis, after the exit of Western troops, Afghan forces retreated from outposts and checkpoints to urban areas when confronted by Taliban threats, thereby ceding control of supply lines and major highways. This allowed Taliban forces to capture large areas and slowly surround and isolate urban centers, enabling them to pressure officials for deals. Local officials were quick to accept Taliban proposals because they had little allegiance to the central government and knew that Afghan forces were unwilling and unable to defend their areas from Taliban offensives.
Indeed, in the areas where Afghan security forces tried to put up some resistance, many soldiers either fled or actively cooperated with approaching Taliban forces. As a result, after the Taliban demonstrated their superior offensive movement and cohesion during the U. The Afghan security forces, as they were configured and trained by , would never have been able to turn back the Taliban.
Notwithstanding that, the realities of the military contest in Afghanistan could have been better managed during the U. A small Western contingent with air support could have held the Taliban at bay for a few more months, protecting urban centers long enough to stage an orderly evacuation. Critically, this alternative approach would have also given the United States, and other outside governments, more time to evacuate greater numbers of Afghan allies and activists to safety. Leaving a limited outside force in place, without significant reinforcement, could not have prevented an inevitable Taliban takeover within a matter of months.
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